


Patina

by Misaya



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Related, Established Relationship, Levi-centric (Shingeki no Kyojin), Light Angst, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Institutions, Past Levi/Erwin Smith, Sexual Content, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 05:15:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8131846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misaya/pseuds/Misaya
Summary: Levi is getting ready for Erwin's inevitable return, and has always been.





	

**Author's Note:**

> written to [1957 - Milo Greene] 
> 
> A teacher of mine once told me that authors wrote in certainties to describe things or events that are uncertain or unreliable.
> 
> i thought i was done writing for this fandom but i guess not

The window was smudged with fingerprints again. Whose? Levi wondered irritably as he rubbed at the glass with the edge of his sleeve. It was probably the man on the other side that Levi saw sometimes out of the corners of his eyes, his dark hair wild and a ragged paisley-patterned robe drawn loose around his gaunt frame. He was probably to blame, Levi decided with a smile of grim satisfaction as he stood back to admire his handiwork. The glass sparkled when he pulled away, and he smiled at his reflection. Neat, polished, clean, his skin clear and pale against the backdrop of the milky sky. It was probably going to rain later that day. There were a lot of probably's to consider, but Levi knew for sure that Erwin wouldn't be pleased to come back to a house with smudged windows and strange men moaning about their dead lovers running around all unkempt and bedraggled. That was certainly out of the question. 

The maids hadn't been nearly as thorough as they ought to have been, for what Erwin was paying them. Levi couldn't personally claim to have seen the pay stubs, but he was sure it was quite a lot. The maids all came from the same institution, and hiring a bulk of them didn't seem terribly cost-efficient, nor practical, but Erwin had his little quirks about him that Levi positively adored, and he was more than willing to put up with them for the sake of having Erwin's arms wrapped around him and his secret kisses planted in the part of his hair. 

"Erwin will be back soon," he snapped at the closest maid, whose white apron was smudged with something red. Strawberry jam? Levi wondered idly as he frowned at the stain. Someone had been in the pantry again, leaving crumbs all over the place, and he was sure he might be on the trail of the very culprit guilty. "I want this place cleaned up." 

The maid bobbed courteously, but not before shooting a glance at another maid halfway down the hall. Her eyebrows quirked, her mouth turning down in a slight frown of dismay, but Levi pretended not to notice. They seemed to drop more hints about their insubordination if he feigned ignorance, so he'd found out. "Of course, Mr. Ackerman, we'll get this all cleaned up right away," she agreed, turning back to him with a faint, supercilious smile that Levi longed to slap right off her face. 

No. Calm. He forced himself to breathe deeply, the air sawing through his lungs like bellows and burning at the back of his throat. The hallway smelled like cleaning soaps and lemon floor polish, and though he adored the scent of hygiene, nearly as much as he adored the small stamp-sized port-wine birthmark on Erwin's chest, the smell was making him a bit nauseous. Light-headed. Airy. 

"Good. You'd better," he warned, wagging a stern finger at them as he plopped himself down into a battered armchair in the corner of the room, one that had certainly seen better days. He'd need to look into getting it reupholstered sometime soon, but for now there were far more pressing matters at hand. Such as Erwin coming back, and Levi was nowhere near ready to receive his husband. He'd been gone on business travel far longer than Levi cared to admit, days bleeding into weeks and eventually into a full month and a half. The glossy pages of the calendar crumpled into neat, waxy balls in the bottom of his wire wastebasket, a testament to the days passing, and the clock's incessant ticking raged through his head in a mockery of all that he had lost and all that he might have yet to lose. 

But Erwin would come back, and the ticking would stop. Their lives would be suspended in hiatus for brief moments, and his mouth would taste like cherries and cream, and Levi would melt away into his arms and forget that the separation had ever happened. The thought was almost enough to bring a genuine smile to his face, something not unnoticed by the maids. 

"Feeling better today, Mr. Ackerman?" one asked, looking hopeful. Levi's sour countenance returned. He didn't make a habit of conversing with the help. 

"None of your business," he snipped back, taking a sort of savage satisfaction in the fall in her expression. It was, after all, important to put people in their rightful places. Society was built on a perfectly balanced pyramid, and Levi would never dream of disrupting the state of equilibrium. 

They moved around, slips of white ghosts leaving the scent of floor polish and cheap perfume in their wake. Their hands, chapped and adorned with chipped red polish, flurried across the sheets of his bed - no, their bed - tugging the sheets into place and tightening the corners, plumping the pillows the way he - no, they - liked them. Levi watched them carefully, scrutinizing their every movement. The sheets had been expensive, after all. 

The bed completed, the two turned in unison to usher him out of their bedroom. 

"Breakfast, Mr. Ackerman?" the one on the right asked. The milky sunlight threaded through her honey-blonde hair, and Levi was reminded of someone he'd once used to know. What had her name been? Dimples in the pockets of her cheeks, freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose like some mysterious constellation. She had loved him, once, before he'd known what love was, and he had never forgotten her. Until now. He stamped his foot in impatience, pausing at the top of the cobblestone stairwell as he pressed his fingers to his temples, trying to think, rummaging in his mind for a name, a voice, a memory, anything. 

"Mr. Ackerman?" she asked again, when it became apparent that he had stopped to reconsider. Her grip tightened ever so subtly around his bicep, and he pulled away irritably. "Are you quite alright?" 

"I'm fine," he snapped. "Just trying to remember something. My mind tends to play tricks on me when the weather's like this." 

"Hm." She sounded doubtful, but a memory was swimming into foggy focus. Horses, lots of them. Green capes, patterned with silver wings, for what reason? And she, her cape was splattered with blood, or strawberry jam, and she had always liked the forest and the first of the summer apples. He shook away the foggy tendrils of misleading memory before they could guide him any further into introspection, and made his way down the stairs. A chill had set into the halls, and the ghosts of the building were acting up. 

Old houses couldn't settle, creaking and sighing and moaning in the middle of the night, and this one was no different. The wind was rushing around the corners of the building wildly, making the bare branches of winter trees skitter madly against the glass windows, the gusts alternating soft sobs and piercing shrieks followed by a command to hush. A calm in the storm. 

He sat down at the cracked and scarred trestle table, and a bowl of porridge appeared before him without his asking. A golden pat of butter, practically a luxury, glistened gleaming on the surface, and small silver pitchers of cream and honey were pushed to the side of his right hand. He drizzled them over the bowl sparingly, stirring until the butter had disappeared, before spooning it into his mouth and letting the rich flavor melt over his tongue. Oh? There? What was that? Just a tinge of bitterness, a small coppery aftertaste and a grainy feeling in the back of his mouth that he couldn't quite get rid of, no matter how much tea he sipped. 

"Something the matter, Mr. Ackerman?" the other maid asked him, from somewhere to his left. He whirled around to berate them; surely they had better things to be doing than watching him eat and perhaps jealously coveting his breakfast. He knew for a fact that the west wing needed a serious scrubbing; the strange man with the ragged robe had written expletives in soot and drawn pictures that were, if Levi was being frank, rather frightening all over the walls in red sauce. "Is your breakfast settling well with you?"

He sniffed in contempt. "A little bitter, but no complaints otherwise," he allowed, not missing the nervous glance that passed between the two. "Don't you two have something to be doing? Erwin comes back in the early afternoon, you know." 

"Right, of course," they agreed, bobbing nervously and skittering towards the door, presumably to get on with their chores. Levi just knew he'd have to spend the rest of the morning haranguing and harping on them. Perhaps he would ask one of them to draw a hot bath first. Lavender bath salts, with orange blossom. Erwin always liked the smell of it on him, fresh and glistening with water, pushing Levi's towel to the floor and out of the way as he breathed sweet nothings into the shell of Levi's ear. "We'll get started right away, Mr. Ackerman, if you please."

"I do please," he snapped at them, allowing himself a moment of satisfaction as they nodded quickly at him before disappearing down the hall. His spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl, and he savored the last few sips of tea in the bottom of his cup. 

Erwin hadn't been back in ages, it felt like, disappearing somewhere behind the tall, cracked walls on some diplomatic mission or another. His husband was in great demand, he was, and Levi understood, or at least attempted to. But what could he possibly be up to, spending so much time away from home? he wondered to himself as he pushed around the last few grains of porridge listlessly. What profession could possibly require such a titanic sacrifice - 

Oh. Yes. Titans. The word came rushing into Levi's mind unbidden, and all the imagery that came with it flooded into the forefront of his brain. Big, hulking creatures with greedy mouths and gaping eyes. They were the reason Erwin spent so much time away, and the reason why Levi had those ugly callouses on his palms, from gripping swords and blades to cut them down like forests. He certainly hoped Erwin hadn't run into a particularly nasty one that was delaying his travel plans, for Levi had plans of his own. 

He could picture it now, laying out the sequence of motion quickly, having imagined it a multitude of times over the past few months. He would tug Erwin into the bedroom quickly, furiously, their mouths like furnaces and fires, kisses like bites without abandon. A whispered word into the crook of Erwin's neck, licking at the hollow of his throat where he tasted like copper and salt and something uniquely Erwin, waiting for Erwin's fingers to crawl up beneath the starched fabric of his shirt to tweak at a dusky nipple. 

And then he wouldn't wait, too eager and too impatient, Levi knew already. He'd have prepared himself earlier in the day, hours ago, slicking his fingers with oil and reaching behind him tentatively to press one, two, maybe even three, into himself, fisting his cock into an ill-gotten orgasm, pearls cupped in the palm of his free hand as he bit into his collar and tried not to let the maids hear. What leverage they might have from that! Erwin would be surprised, for a moment, for a heartbeat, but then his mouth would crook upwards at the corner in the way that Levi liked, the way that set his blood to racing, and his fingers would reach down between the two of them to fumble with the clasp of Levi's belt and the buttons of his slacks, and then. 

Yes. And then. 

The last swills of cream in the chipped bowl in front of Levi on the table were drying rapidly, smudging pale streaks on the china that would have to vigorously be scrubbed out later, but Levi could hardly care less. His cock twitched lightly between his thighs at the thoughts that plagued his anxious and eager mind, and the clocks chimed ten. Three more hours, then, and hours enough for the last bout of self-satisfaction. 

He hurried upstairs quickly, barricading himself in their room and deftly pressing the door shut. The maids didn't like it when his door was shut, though of course they had no say in the matter. Made some excuses that the room would get dusty and mildewy if he kept the doors shut, but Levi figured that the short-lived seclusion couldn't harm anyone. 

The freshly-made sheets were silky and cool beneath his fingertips, and he shivered to himself as he unbuttoned his paisley robe and let it slip to the floor in a puddle. He burrowed into the sheets again, his fingers already reaching down to wrap around his straining cock, which wept and leaked sticky fluid across his palm. Levi bit his lip, the searing pleasure biting through him as his fingertips probed lightly at the head, stroked at the thick vein on the underside the way he knew Erwin would. 

His hand set up a strong, firm pulling rhythm, a distant mimicry of what Erwin could do and would do, certainly, and he gnawed at the swell of his lower lip as he closed his eyes and dreamt it was Erwin's hand stroking him to completion, Erwin's hand pinching at a nipple and turning it into a swollen peak, Erwin's hand reaching between his thighs and stroking lightly around his fluttering entrance while he whispered affections into Levi's ear to send shivers down his spine. 

Yes, certainly. Levi's head pressed back into the freshly plumped pillows, his hips squirming up to meet his hand, as he thought about Erwin's mouth. Plush, plump lips, wrapped around the head of his cock, tongue teasing maddeningly at the slit, Levi writhing in the mussed sheets, all but clawing at them, as he begged with Erwin to let him come. Erwin probably wouldn't, though, Levi amended to himself now, his hand squeezing at the base of his twitching cock and staving off an orgasm that had reared suddenly on the immediate horizon. He'd probably make Levi wait, oh so cruel kind like that, would make him beg and plead and cry and sob and, oh, even then might continue to deny him. 

He rolled over, pressing his cheek into the pillow so hard that a crease from the tight linen embedded itself in his cheek, as he reached between his spread thighs, his fingers stroking lightly along furled muscle until it blossomed rose beneath his ministrations. Erwin would press his cock into him, feed it into him absurdly slowly, inch by rough, dry inch, and Levi would accept the stretch and the burn fantastically, pleadingly, desperately, the pleasure wringing through him as violent as the winter storm the heavy clouds on the horizon seemed to promise. The clouds were dark, thick, swollen with snow and sleet, overshadowing the walls with their immensity. 

Erwin would take his pleasure from him, large hands leaving black and blue five-fingered bruises along the swells of Levi's hips, ones that he would be feeling for days afterwards and relish in his memory for ages. Levi bit into the pillowcase desperately, trying to reel in his sounds as his fingers pressed and stroked himself into a frenzy. The hand on his cock began to move again, relaxing its vice around the base, and he could feel the fresh sheets beneath him becoming damp. Erwin would have him any way he chose, would fuck him any way he chose, and the slick vulgarity of the very word itself had Levi coming harder than he had in a long time, thick spatters of fluid onto the white cotton beneath him, his body clutching desperate and tight around his own fingers. 

The sensation was exhilarating, and he slumped exhausted into the dirtied sheets, resting for just a moment, just a brief moment, as he collected himself again. Rain started to spatter against the windows, beating a tattoo into the glass that Levi's pulse gently set into rhythm with. 

Just a few minutes of this, then. A few moments of indulgent relaxation. The rain continued, growing harder and more pronounced against the glass. The strange man wouldn't have the gall to appear today, Levi thought with a small smile of triumph. It would be far too inclement. 

Eventually, though, he dragged himself out of bed, wandering giddily to the door, flinging it open, and calling the maids to come change the sheets. He headed into the bath to make himself presentable, a bit dismayed to find that it hadn't been prepared for him, but accepting the fact that the west wing had been left in truly quite a state. 

Water from the cistern on the roof's house gushed into the tub at the turn of a tap, and, because it was raining, Levi allowed himself the luxury of letting the water run for a few seconds until it had attained a degree of heat he'd found acceptable before reaching in and plugging the drain. The water was scalding, steam reaching up to coil pearly tendrils around his face as his skin turned pink. Clothes puddling on the floor, sinking lightly into the water to boil away the shadows. Levi sighed in abject relief, his head lolling back against the rim of the bathtub as the water accepted him into its searing embrace. 

Erwin would like him in the tub, too, would like him pink and fresh and glistening wet, sensitive as he rolled them into the sheets together. Levi's cock between his thighs twitched a bit with exhausted interest, but Levi was no longer young, and some fantasies had to continue to remain so until some circumstance came along to make it a reality. 

He soaked in the tub, the scent of hot water and cypress oil - they had had no lavender bath salts left, and Levi had added that on to his mental list of things to buy at a later date - filling the air for what seemed like hours. He could hear the maids scuffling outside, chattering away in low voices about so-and-so-'s delusions being particularly strong today, perhaps they should tell him? Was the medicine strong enough? Did he even remember that someone had died a month and a half ago, who he was, the elaborate set of conceptions and imaginations he had created for himself in order to cope? He toned them out, dozing lightly as the hot water massaged at his aching limbs and tight knots, and only came to when the water had begun to grow cold and clammy against his skin. 

He bundled himself out of the tub, dripping water all over the tiles, and headed to the mirror to examine himself. 

One second's glance set him on edge, his fingers curling tight into a fist. The strange man was back, his hair wet ragged, curling at the edges from the damp. His eyes were wild, his pale skin flush and pink with the heat. 

But no. Levi's head reeled, resisting the urge to send a fist into the glass. 

The bathroom had no windows. 

The realization was enough to give him pause, enough to send his mind whirring into overdrive. Titans and pats of butter and smudged windows and strange men whirled through the forefront of Levi's imagination, memories spilling through the cracks. Erwin, his cape spattered not with strawberry jam but with something coppery sweet; Erwin, his eyes closed and his lips bloodstained and Levi's high-pitched voice snapping at him to wake up, it wasn't funny anymore; Erwin, lying still and silent on a sagging mattress with a vase of morning glory beside him because Levi had decided it should be that way, the scene, the act, the play itself. A crushing wave of guilt swept through him, swept through the strange man, too, if the expression on his face were anything to go by. 

"Mr. Ackerman?" a nurse shouted through the door. Sharp knocks, rap, rap, rap, in pace with Levi's heartbeat. "Are you okay in there?" 

As suddenly as it had come, the guilt was broken. Forgotten. Swept away in a mist, like the steam spilling through the cracks of the door. It had to be a dream, certainly. Erwin would be arriving back this afternoon, and Levi just needed to be ready to receive him, in all the ways he knew how. He frowned at the strange man in disapproval, and the strange man frowned back, shaking his head at Levi as though to say he should have known better. Should have known it was an illusion, a mistake. Some faulty wiring gone astray. Anyone's would, after going through all of that.

He wrapped a clean, fluffy white towel around himself, gave the strange man a parting nod before leaving the bathroom to get dressed, one that was duly returned. They had come to an understanding, Levi felt sure, he and the strange man. They would coexist peacefully, and one would not bother the other without expressly written permission or dire circumstances beforehand. Things were so much better set in stone that way, and Levi let the steam pulse out around him, bathing him in a sort of last kiss of pearly white, as he headed to the closet to pull out acceptable clothes for Erwin's inevitable return. 


End file.
